Page:Grigory Zinoviev - Report of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (1921).pdf/73

 was merely a matter of paltry differences of opinion regarding Smeral's tactics. Subsequent events, however, caused Kreibich to see things in a different light.

We ask the Czecho-Slovak comrades to cast aside all national considerations in regard to this question. I know we are all human, brought up upon bourgeois ideology, susceptible to the national sentiments imbibed with mother's milk. At any rate, this is by no means a national question, nor a German and Czecho-Slovak question; it is a question of the alternative between thorough-going Communism and vacillating semi-Communism. Why does Smeral just now advance the question of reconstruction and federalisation? How can one now figure the Third International to oneself otherwise than represented by a uniform Party in every country? How can this continue to be a disputed problem within the Communist Party? We must simply establish a Bureau which would carry out the centralisation as quickly as possible without putting it off any longer.

For these reasons, comrades, we must tell the Czecho-Slovak comrades quite plainly what we think about the situation. It was by no mere coincidence that the representatives of the Bulgarian, Italian, German, Russian, and Polish Party have said the same thing. We are following this question with utmost attention. I am convinced that there will be no Livorno here. We may rest assured that the majority, when hearing what the Communist International has spoken, and not only the majority but also those who are now in friendly relations with Smeral, will say: "Smeral is our friend, but the Communist International is our greater friend." I am convinced that the great majority of the workers in Czecho-Slovakia will identify themselves with our decisions, and I hope that this will also be the attitude of the great majority of comrades in other countries. We hand our resolution to the Executive with firm assurance, with complete conviction that these resolutions